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How's The Current Market? - A Returning Player Question

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8 minutes ago, CountZero said:

the only problem is that it will encourage mass deforestation

its not a problem, in my opinion landscape needs some places without trees

TRkarXq.jpg

 

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trees are a bane on this world, the only good tree is a felled tree being wielded in the hands of a maniac

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well thats ok then :D nerf iron and all hail our new charcoal making overlords

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57 minutes ago, CountZero said:

Set a skill cap at 50 or 30 or something - high enough that ppl can support themselves with stuff "that will do" but stuff that isnt great.

Allow players to take a per-defined set of skills over the cap. A player will choose the skill area depending on the thing they want to do most. For example someone who wants to blacksmith will be able to skill blacksmith, weapon/armor smith etc etc. But they wont be able to skill things they might need to create the materials they need - for example, mining, prospecting, maybe smelting will be in a separate group.

 

We had that in the beginning of the game. Removing the skill cap wasn't probably such a good idea, since it removed any need for community play (outside of pvp).

 

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4 hours ago, CountZero said:

Set a skill cap at 50 or 30 or something - high enough that ppl can support themselves with stuff "that will do" but stuff that isnt great.

Allow players to take a per-defined set of skills over the cap. A player will choose the skill area depending on the thing they want to do most. For example someone who wants to blacksmith will be able to skill blacksmith, weapon/armor smith etc etc. But they wont be able to skill things they might need to create the materials they need - for example, mining, prospecting, maybe smelting will be in a separate group.

 

This will stop the problem of veteran accounts eventually being able to do everything themselves and not needing to trade.

This kind of thinking gets me furious.

You're seriously telling me that you would want to be caped like that?

The main selling point of this game to me is that with enough time invested I could do anything I want. 

And sorry to break it to you, it maybe looks like that on paper but this wouldn't increase trading ingame, it will either make people quit or prem up and grind bunch of alts untill we cover all we wanted and could with one account. The thing you suggest is utterly terrible game design because of which I only play wurm and no other games. Look where priest restriction brought us, nobody is buying enchants because everyone has priest alts.

If I want to invest 10 years in this game and want to have more than 10 100 skills it's none ###### buisness to restrict me for sake of some economy. I want to be both carpetner and smith, both farmer and fighter so sod of with such restrictions(only restriction should be time to do it), can go play WOW if I wanted that.

Edited by kochinac
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40 minutes ago, kochinac said:

 because everyone has priest alts.

not everyone has priest alts capable of enchanting. (mine can only bless)
we only get one char per account. i personally can't afford to prem 2 characters.
we tolerate this because it's more money for codeclub.
not everyone wants top enchants renewed every 6 months, not everyone needs supremes.
I only have rare tools for the tasks i do most often (4) and i dont grind so i rarely have to get them re-enchanted.

I agree with you on everything else, capping skills would be wurmageddon 2.
especially considering the work many folk have put into making their specialisms 99.**

Edited by Steveleeb

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1 hour ago, kochinac said:

This kind of thinking gets me furious.

You're seriously telling me that you would want to be caped like that?

The main selling point of this game to me is that with enough time invested I could do anything I want. 

And sorry to break it to you, it maybe looks like that on paper but this wouldn't increase trading ingame, it will either make people quit or prem up and grind bunch of alts untill we cover all we wanted and could with one account. The thing you suggest is utterly terrible game design because of which I only play wurm and no other games. Look where priest restriction brought us, nobody is buying enchants because everyone has priest alts.

If I want to invest 10 years in this game and want to have more than 10 100 skills it's none ###### buisness to restrict me for sake of some economy. I want to be both carpetner and smith, both farmer and fighter so sod of with such restrictions(only restriction should be time to do it), can go play WOW if I wanted that.

 

what a nice calm response to a discussion - I did mention that most people would not like it, I wasn't suggesting we should do this, just discussing ways you could make trade work.

 

 

The kind of no limits sandbox game we currently have that you like is great - but its that nature that prevents there being any kind of interesting economy. Im not saying one is better than another. I am saying that they are mutually exclusive.

 

 

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2 hours ago, CountZero said:

 

what a nice calm response to a discussion 

 

 

I said it gets me furious :P

yeah it's not about you, sorry for that, even reread your post after i posted, i realized that you are not defending it so might have been overreacted towards you so i do appologize for anything personal in my post. But still i'm extremly mad at that concept and thing that it should never goes to that even for the sake of economy, like i think it should never got to having skill decay again. I am on other side against character trading although i understand peoles reasoning about that, but personaly never liked it and i think economy would be much stronger without it as it would allow natural sink for vet accounts, even the time they don't play is enough to open space in market for new active players. To some extend i agree with but i don't think going to such extremes is neccesity.

No need to reinvent the wheel with economy, with more players activly playing economy would get better, as like i mentioned Wurm has that unique beauty in game design that only true restriction is time. In that notion i agree with some of the people that skilling maybe became too easy.

As for the steel i simply adore steel and my dream when i started was to manufacture steel tools not iron ones, it's not worth considering effort vs money, but i still do it just for my own fulfilment, enjoying in road i had to go and skills i had to grind to get to somewhat steady steel production for me. What is interesting is natural raising bounds, like when i started nobody even thought of making steel tools, now people do it because iron became boring and to easy

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On 7/10/2019 at 6:23 AM, Retrograde said:

trees are a bane on this world, the only good tree is a felled tree being wielded in the hands of a maniac

I think you got lost in the forest of OT to make this post; but along those lines I must say that trees are the best part of Wurm. Better that this type of tree killer was felled than the trees. I have most likely planted more trees over time than they have cut down anyway. It's just that when this type of slaughter is advocated more maniacs (good labeling) join the cause, more trees shed their tears of sorrow to water the sproutlings under them. Anyway, WU is a better choice for tree hugging as some servers seem to cherish their presence.

 

=Ayes=

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On 7/9/2019 at 10:43 AM, CountZero said:

wurm is not a game that can really have an economy. In order for an economy to work, ppl need to need/want things they cant or wont make/get for themselves.

I think a big problem that we have in terms of a Wurm "economy" or "market" is that there is no precise definition of it layed out beforehand so that the issue can be addressed accurately. Everyone seems to have their own idea of what this means so they go off on their own interpretation of it. In the terms you have stated, yes Wurm can have an "economy" because many people will prefer not to create and obtain items on their own game time so they will purchase them from others. I see no problem with this *if* anyone with sufficient effort could do this on their own if desired and no skills or abilities that are gained over time are artificially designed to decline to benefit this "market".

 

The big bugaboo here is when players come up with schemes to benefit their specific ability to dominate some aspects of this "market" because then it comes at the expense of increasing the costs of playing the game for all the others. The "market/economy" should always be secondary to the opportunity of all players to become participants within it or not without increasing their game playing costs disproportionately, which unfortunately I think many of these player suggestions to improve the "market/economy" do (increase costs). Then fortunately on the other hand few are ever adopted as being beneficial to the game anyway.

 

=Ayes=

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10 hours ago, Ayes said:

I think a big problem that we have in terms of a Wurm "economy" or "market" is that there is no precise definition of it layed out beforehand so that the issue can be addressed accurately. Everyone seems to have their own idea of what this means so they go off on their own interpretation of it. In the terms you have stated, yes Wurm can have an "economy" because many people will prefer not to create and obtain items on their own game time so they will purchase them from others. I see no problem with this *if* anyone with sufficient effort could do this on their own if desired and no skills or abilities that are gained over time are artificially designed to decline to benefit this "market".

 

The big bugaboo here is when players come up with schemes to benefit their specific ability to dominate some aspects of this "market" because then it comes at the expense of increasing the costs of playing the game for all the others. The "market/economy" should always be secondary to the opportunity of all players to become participants within it or not without increasing their game playing costs disproportionately, which unfortunately I think many of these player suggestions to improve the "market/economy" do (increase costs). Then fortunately on the other hand few are ever adopted as being beneficial to the game anyway.

 

=Ayes=

 

Imo a good, simple game economy for a game like wurm is one where a large range of items are actively traded between most ppl. Basic materials, simple everyday items, excellent every day items, luxury goods and "rare" stuff. If the economy just consisted of only end game rare items with such and such enchants etc then i would call that ****

 

I agree about market dominating, a good simple game economy for wurm should consist of producers selling their items directly to earn the money they require to pay for the things they need. As soon as you get people hoarding money, playing games to manipulate prices etc you get problems. Middlemen can also be trouble - however innocently they may be playing (sometimes its fun to just be a trader) - this kind of play style can damage an economy in a small game like wurm.

 

No easy answers to any of it :(

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My thoughts:

 

A lot of us have their preferred suppliers who we go to without announcing it on Trade channel. If i need to buy something, after playing the game for a while i know who to turn to. People have reputation in our own eyes and i know that if i need X for tomorrow, "this" guy will deliver it to me, drop it off at the usual spot, send me something CoD and i will pick the cost whenever i can. It's a two way trust and over the years i have been functioning this way. I know for a fact that more people do because our alliance does that as well. If someone joins and asks where they can buy a supreme handlebar with ribbons and a bell, multiple existing members will say "just give X a shout, you'll have it within 2 days and cheap too.

 

Understandably, people who are entering the market for any reason (new player, someone changing their profession for a while and has excess stock, good loot from a disbanded deed) will have a hard time finding people who don't have their "go-to-guy" already and this is because the current player base is well established. Most of us play the game for years and we simply don't need to look at the Trade channel for anything, we already know a person who will give us a discount, who will deliver on time, who will go out of their way to make the trade a pleasant one. Those are the sellers we stick to. 

 

Coincidentally, those are the sellers who survive on the market and don't burn out because they have a well established customer base so even if they don't get sales from advertising on Trade, they still get returning customers outside of public channels.

 

As for selling things, i don't sell anything, in my years in Wurm i have sold one item in total (and traded all my SP for clay but i also have a supplier who is always there for me when i need him and will drop what he's doing to dig more clay for me, speaking of business relationships). Thus, i can't say exactly what it looks like from the seller point of view but i would imagine it's pretty much the same. There are people out there who have no problem making their sales just because they have returning customers.

 

Bottom line is this: With majority of players being long term here, for many the Trade channel could not exist, they already know who to go to for the things they need. Influx of new players would move the market for sure, some of new players would be willing to invest money instead of time to build their awesome castle or to be able to kill that troll which was bullying their village for days or to have a nice and fast boat. Not all of them but those are the players who fuel the market. Those are the players who are happy with prices going down as well. If my silver coin can get me 12 packets of smokes instead of 10 because people are undercutting each other? I'm delighted with that.

 

There is nothing wrong with the market. There simply isn't enough new buyers to keep all the sellers happy.

 

One "solution" comes to mind. 

Hypothetically i'm looking to buy 50k bricks and i'm a new player. I have to keep spamming Trade channel about it and wait for someone to fulfill the order, ideally - in one trade. To avoid running to the dock multiple times if nothing else.

Should someone respond to the WTB advert, it's going to be one person satisfied and the rest of brickmakers upset that they can't sell theirs stock. It's about the timing, it's about luck, it's about demand, it's about the established relationships again. If one of those things could be eliminated, a lot could change in the dynamics of the market. 

 

Take out the Timing factor out of the equation. I need bricks - i get bricks. Someone makes a sale, i get to build, everyone is happy. There is at least one deed on Exo that sells bulk materials via merchant+keys+pens and there are player merchants for selling smaller goods. This still means i have to travel though and it's not something i enjoy so i will naturally go to my "guy" and have the materials delivered, at a price lower than currently on the market and i'll get the crates for free. The choice is obvious here.

 

Consider however something that was suggested countless times and bashed in to oblivion even more times probably.

Equivalent of Auction House in some other popular games. Forget the realism for a second, forget the "we should travel and meet new people and blahblahblah". The population is so thin at this point that to make that purchase i would most likely go to the seller, see no one on the way, meet the person for that one trade and forget about it. Talking purely about the market and not realism or any social side of buying a brick, if i could open a menu, check the prices, place an order (could be fulfilled by wagoner for example) and have the stuff delivered to me with 100% guarantee of not being scammed or any other unpleasant surprises - i would gladly give up a bit of realism.

Then there's people who say "but that will make the prices drop even further because of those vicious undercutters who want to sell their stock asap!". Well, that is a business opportunity, no? Buy out the cheap stock and resell with profit? How low can someone drop their price before it gets unsustainable too?

Plus, an auction house would invalidate most of the existing buyer-seller relationships and level out the playing field between veterans who can't keep up fulfilling their orders for frequent buyers and a new starter who is trying to pay for his first premium. I would probably rather go to AH, have everything i need charged and delivered by the system, even if i had to wait for the wagoner to deliver it.

 

On a side note, if this would use existing wagoners and people would be queued behind other player's orders - there would be much more wagoners, even if private, to go around. A nice money sink for CCAB. There could also be additional sink of a small tax on each sale so that people could potentially prefer to travel to save a few copper on the purchase.

 

I'm no economist but someone selling bricks at 50c per thousand to be on top of the list would be the least of my worries. Buy them out and resell at 1s per thousand.

 

 

 

 

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If wagoners would be employed for an auction house style infrastructure, I think it could be done all via a new UIs only. Cast Courier or Dark Messenger on a depot to link it up to the "auction house system", if you want some wogic-y/magic-based explanation for how this sort of communication can be facilitated in "medival times".

Instead of sealing a delivery, put crates loosely into the depot for sale, right click the depot and mark whatever crate for sale with its price.

A depot wouldn't be able to be used conventionally while it has items for sale in it(That'll likely just be too much of a hassle codewise), but that's easily solved by making 2 depots. The extra coding for wagoner behavior shouldn't be particularly difficult since the items are already available in the structure required for pickup.

Similarly, any waypoint can be used to order stuff to. No new assets and only 2 new UIs needed, it works pretty much like wagoners do already except even more asynchronously, so no huge coding work to bridge the gap between the new and old functionality either.

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i gues thats something else to consider - this entire time iv been talking about trading and a economy - iv been thinking of it as another aspect to gameplay - like building a building or hunting animals or making this and that. A part of the whole experience - where as other people see an economy as simply a means to an end. They don't see it as gameplay but as a tool to assist their gameplay. This is where the auction-house/no auction-house debate pops up.

 

Another reason why the "economy" is such a difficult topic, since it would have to be implemented with a view to fulfilling a purpose/objective, and since and economy's can fill different purposes - which do you choose?

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2 hours ago, CountZero said:

i gues thats something else to consider - this entire time iv been talking about trading and a economy - iv been thinking of it as another aspect to gameplay - like building a building or hunting animals or making this and that. A part of the whole experience - where as other people see an economy as simply a means to an end. They don't see it as gameplay but as a tool to assist their gameplay. This is where the auction-house/no auction-house debate pops up.

 

Another reason why the "economy" is such a difficult topic, since it would have to be implemented with a view to fulfilling a purpose/objective, and since and economy's can fill different purposes - which do you choose?

 

Fair point.

I didn't consider that as market doesn't appeal to me at the slightest. It's more of a must and a chore for me personally but i agree. There are people out there who enjoy the sole activity of trading rather than the outcome, be it coins or items.

In that regard an automated market system might take away that pleasure. Or not, if the sales would be taxed in a balanced way maybe? Very hard to predict the outcome in that regard.

 

There are many things one person can't consider but that's why we are discussing those things. 

 

On another note, us wanting or not wanting functionality to be implemented, ultimately means very little. It's up to CCAB to make a call on that and i'm sure that Staff gets to see many more different angles of this than one player would, like in this case. I would personally never consider market as an important part of my gameplay but in the same way someone else might have zero interest in teraforming and think of it as something that unfortunately has to be done, while i think it's one of the best things in Wurm.

 

Edit:

 

Corrected the autocorrects >.<

Edited by Locath

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Fixing the economy requires

 

1. A revamped decay/break system to exit out goods, so people have to produce new ones.  The current wear/repair system just does not cut it.

2. Free players need to be revamped, in some way... to entice them to stay (for free, sorry) and to also entice them to upgrade.  Why not half their skilling speed after 20, and another half for every 10... but don't cap them?   If they can't afford to play we still need them around for economic purposes, and we don't want them quitting because they're capped and can't progress further...  If someone wants to play so much to get to 99 this way then let them.

3. This is a big one... we need more industries.  Right now, the game has been out long enough there's just no shortage of talented craftsmen.  We need new skills, with new assets, etc...  To produce more jobs.  I suggested a while ago that they should have made item type dependent on the whole item being made of that material.  For example, you want an oak chair?  The whole thing needs to be made with oak wood.  This would create the lumberjack profession, you'd have to constantly plant/cut down trees and provide wood to craftsmen OR for yourself.

4. A way to continue to upgrade existing items is also a possibility.  The rare system is neat in it's own way, but it's time for new fresh ideas that bring life to the system.  Maybe it's time for the modern way of doing things - gambling?  You use a gem on the item, and there's a chance it gets upgraded.  If it fails both items are destroyed.  This would cycle items out of peoples chests and storage bins.

 

Ignore my suggestions?  That's fine, I'm just brainstorming what could fix the economy...  a garbage collector system is necessary as annoying as that is.  I prefer the voluntary way of upgrading items with chance of break.

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On 7/25/2019 at 8:15 PM, jonsnow said:

Fixing the economy requires

 

1. A revamped decay/break system to exit out goods, so people have to produce new ones.  The current wear/repair system just does not cut it. 
i can see more people leaving because of this

 

2. Free players need to be revamped, in some way... to entice them to stay (for free, sorry) and to also entice them to upgrade.  Why not half their skilling speed after 20, and another half for every 10... but don't cap them?   If they can't afford to play we still need them around for economic purposes, and we don't want them quitting because they're capped and can't progress further...  If someone wants to play so much to get to 99 this way then let them.
if only freedom (not including chaos), could work. not limiting free players to make bulk items could be work, but still the problem is retain them.
 

3. This is a big one... we need more industries.  Right now, the game has been out long enough there's just no shortage of talented craftsmen.  We need new skills, with new assets, etc...  To produce more jobs.  I suggested a while ago that they should have made item type dependent on the whole item being made of that material.  For example, you want an oak chair?  The whole thing needs to be made with oak wood.  This would create the lumberjack profession, you'd have to constantly plant/cut down trees and provide wood to craftsmen OR for yourself.
more skill would help a few weeks, remember how fast people got 90 archelogy/restoration.
 

4. A way to continue to upgrade existing items is also a possibility.  The rare system is neat in it's own way, but it's time for new fresh ideas that bring life to the system.  Maybe it's time for the modern way of doing things - gambling?  You use a gem on the item, and there's a chance it gets upgraded.  If it fails both items are destroyed.  This would cycle items out of peoples chests and storage bins.

maybe jewelsmith + new tool: gem powder maybe blessed or 90 skill to have a chance increse rune slots?
 

Ignore my suggestions?  That's fine, I'm just brainstorming what could fix the economy...  a garbage collector system is necessary as annoying as that is.  I prefer the voluntary way of upgrading items with chance of break.
is fine, we can post, talk or make pools, devs not even considered forums

 

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I mean I have offered in depth responses to this type of thread in the past, several of those I've been the OP of. We can discuss this forever but it's up to the developers. 

 

Stuff like item sinks would be appreciated to remove excess.

 

Combination rare system. With decent chance to fail and destroy rares in the process.

 

More item sinks, oh and did I mention item sinks?

 

Fix loopholes like OP, myself and others have taken advantage of over the years.. rare material farming... Definitely not a exploit but a can of worms to the economy.

 

 

 

Edited by Niki

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On 7/10/2019 at 9:02 AM, kochinac said:

And sorry to break it to you, it maybe looks like that on paper but this wouldn't increase trading ingame, it will either make people quit or prem up and grind bunch of alts untill we cover all we wanted and could with one account.

 

"...it will either make people quit..."

Thank goodness we don't have  dwindling player base now, right? Right?

 

"...or prem up and grind bunch of alts untill we cover all we wanted...."

You mean there's people still paying Wurm who don't have multiple alts now?

 

Now, Im not saying I agree with the guys suggestion...just saying, your counter points are, well, an epic failure in logic.

 

A healthy MMO needs to cycle out veteran players every so often for new players. If you focus on retaining Vets you will still lose them, just at a slower rate, and you will have 0 player retention on new players who find it impossible to find their place in an aging game dominated by end game Vets that essentially ignores them. People need to get over this fear (not just in Wurm, but in many of the aging yet still going MMO's) of losing Vets. At the 6 year point vets should start cycling out of a game, to make room for new players.

 

Vets leaving is not only not a bad thing, it's actually a good thing...as long as attention to bringing in and retaining new players is ongoing and effective.

 

And alts...seriously? In an MMO? (MMO = Massive Multiboxing Online. It's not about playing with others, it's about playing with yourself in front of others!) Thats not even an argument. Hasn't been in any MMO for for 10 years.

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On 7/12/2019 at 6:28 AM, Locath said:

Then there's people who say "but that will make the prices drop even further because of those vicious undercutters who want to sell their stock asap!". Well, that is a business opportunity, no? Buy out the cheap stock and resell with profit? How low can someone drop their price before it gets unsustainable too? 

Plus, an auction house would invalidate most of the existing buyer-seller relationships and level out the playing field between veterans who can't keep up fulfilling their orders for frequent buyers and a new starter who is trying to pay for his first premium. I would probably rather go to AH, have everything i need charged and delivered by the system, even if i had to wait for the wagoner to deliver it.

 

Well, a couple things.

"Then there's people who say "but that will make the prices drop even further because of those vicious undercutters who want to sell their stock asap!". Well, that is a business opportunity, no? Buy out the cheap stock and resell with profit? How low can someone drop their price before it gets unsustainable too"

Real world economics dont work in an MMO. You cant buy cheap and resell in a game where resources are infinite and grinding is the way to end. Once the price drops, it never comes back up. Buying up stock? Like most aged MMO's there is soo much material sitting around in warehouses that no one could possibly buy enough stick up to create an icnrease in prices...and that's in a scenario where no new stock is being made.

 

Pirces can drop until they are effectively at token price. There is nothing sustaining prices. It's purely made up by players. That concept of a bottom only exist in the real world because the real world has real costs associate with everything that is produced. These associated price at their core start from the use of finite resources. Are apples a finite resource> No. So why do they cost money to buy? because harvesting and transporting uses fuel, and vehicles and equipment made from other finite resources like iron, coal and steel. MMO's rarely have any kind of finite resource.

 

Does Wurm have a finite resource? Yes, we do. We have one. Land. Deed's in particular. While land is currently in abundance due to overzealous growth combined with a dwindling player base we do in fact have finite land mass. Even if they add another server, the land mass is still finite. Oil does not stop being a finite resource just because we find a new cashe. Just the point of sustainability in the resource becomes longer. So our only finite resource, from which all prices, in the real world, would be based minimum at is driven by the cost of the deed and upkeep per tile. So any one one farm tile needs to make at a minimum 20 iron per month to sustain itself financially. as an overall deed, that minimum gets increased as some of those tiles are used for things do not generate income, such as buildings. Every tile not used for farming must be incorporated into the cost per tile of those that are.

 

If you have a 100 tile deed. 10 tiles are used for living quarters, warehouse, and keeping your working horses on (for carts and wagons), that leaves 90 tiles generating farming income.100 tiles 2000i a month. Those 90 tiles now need to make 22.222~ iron a month to break even on the cost of the deed (yes, i know, Im not including perimeter or even Deed starting costs. as an example to make my point, I'm trying to keep the math simple).

 

Now the the problem we run into here is, although land is a finite resource, we can do something you cant do in real life. We can simply buy money. Basic principles of supply and demand, even when you have a finite resource in the game, completely break when one can simply buy currency. One can continue to drop prices all thew way to bottom, and simply purchase silver to make up the difference, by prem, and deed upkeep, and any other thing you want to buy in game. Because grinding is the only way to progress, supply will always be constant despite demand. People can stop buying bricks today, and people will still make bricks, because skill gain. In the real world, if people stopped buying bricks, people would stop making bricks.

The basic concept in Wurm generally though is, you pay for the deed via in game means, and you purchase the sub with RL money (and, if you lucky, supplement that with in game money to reduce sub costs...this part here is where end game is supposed to be most beneficial. As you gain skill, you can increase your income, thereby reducing you rl costs to play as time goes on).

 

Currently "minimum wage", as I understand it, is actually set more or less to token. 10c per action? This is interesting, except I've noticed this only accounts for final product. it does not account for entire production. This is where new and mid levels players can be left out of parts of the economy.

Lets take a small barrel for example. at 10c per action, the price of a small barrel is 50c for 5 actions to create. the problem is, this does not account for the entire production. it is not 5 actions.

1 mine ore

2 smelt ore

3 make nail

4 cut down teee

5 make log

6 make plank

7 make plank

8 make plank

9 make plank

10 make plank

11 combine nail and plank

12 add plank

13 add plank

14 add plank

15 add plank

 

15 actions (we could further down this rabbit hole and count how many mine actions to make enough ore for a nail, and how many cuts to bring down a tree, and replanting that tree, but I digress)

to be also

So a small barrel should, at minimum cost, be 1s50c When you include the entire process in the cost, you now have people willing to specialize, since the cost of buying nails and planks is already covered in the basic cost. as a carpenter, If I want to make and sell small barrels, i currently have to be a miner, a blacksmith, a woodsman, and a forester...and have to do it for free. If I purchase nails and planks from people also working minimum wage costs, I just lost 1s per barrel sale due to purchase costs. This eliminates 4 occupations that new players could engage in to supply me, that i just bypassed to do it...for free, because at 50c you aren't paying me for all 15 actions required, only 5.

 

So that's the minimum wage cost done by per action.We still haven't figured in the finite resource costs, deed upkeep....the tiles used to the iron vein, the tree node, the tile used to house the forge.

Until players start to see land as a finite resource, any talk of real world economics, much less any concept of supply and demand, is off the table.

 

Now when i started, players did see land as a finite resource. resource nodes were very regionally distributed, particularity ore and rock veins. Also cross server was a specific path to follow. Where you lived matter a whole lot more. Land had value.

 

So. lets look at something like veggies. 10c per action, 1s per/k. Well, actually farming is three actions., sowing, at least one farming,  and harvesting, but it's only counted as one. one action would be foraging. salvaging is no action. If you a salvager, like myself, you ahead of the minimum wage. I get paid for an action I do not engage in. If your a farmer, your behind the minimum wage, as you are getting paid for one action when your engaging in three. Minimum wage farming should start at 3s per/k.

 

And you ask how far can they drop it? currently several high production farmers are selling for 75c. One is even selling for 50c. Thats for 99ql veggies. 99 ql veggies go for 10i at token. That's 10,000i per/k, or 100c, or 1s. They could literary make more money selling it back to ClubAB then selling to to players for less then Wurm minimum wage. And that's the top end stuff. Something someone spent years grinding up to, and years throwing money into the game to get there, and they are selling it for less the the game itself would pay them back for it, and 3x less then what they should just to get Wurm "minimum wage". At this point, when your selling for less then token, your not just figuratively screwing yourself, your literally screwing yourself. ClubAB is willing to give you some of your money back that you've thrown into the game, and we as players decide "nah,  I don't want silver, I want 5c. Less is better, so I can spend more real money."

 

You don't think there's a race to the bottom? At what point does it become unsustainable? As long as they can buy silver, as long as they don't feel their deed is a finite resource, they can give it away for free. And they will, because there will not be a point where people will stop farming, because farming is the only way to skill farming. It will continue to be made whether people buy it or not.

 

And yes, Ive seen eh constant arguments that low prices, like veggies, is good for newbies. Sorry, newbies don't buy 10k veggies (or 50k bricks. They don't even have the skill to make building that would require 50k bricks). And even if he did, if he could get 1s5c per small barrel, he could afford 3s per/k veggies, or vice versa.

 

And he works less for his deed. One small barrel is a months upkeep and some change. Maybe he'll be more likely to stick around if he could at least pay for his upkeep in game without having to forage for hours a day. Lower prices do not help new players. It kinda screws them right out of the game. It only helps Vets, who can now power grind their priests cheap (at this point, about the only character type worth having anymore), at the expense of insanely high new player turnover.

 

This is not a Dev issue. We as players set these prices. Sure, there are stuff Devs could do to (or more to the point, not do) minimize damage, like instead of fixing rare spam they introduced Tomes, Imbues and Runes to make rares near worthless, or by redistributing veins and ending server order lumping that helped give land it's finite value (which in turn, reflected in item prices)..but in the end, it's us that have decided the actual price of things, not the Devs. Real World economics of Supply and Demand are meaningless in a skill grind based game. Thats not how the economy really works in MMO's.

 

The one point you made, the overwhelming pint of your post I agree with. The economy isn't  completely broken. It's moving along, albeit a bit anemic in places. I've managed to find my place in the game, after several years of banging my head against the wall. But even then, it's , as i pointed out, becuase I often work/sell for far less then "w\Wurm minimum wage" (not always. I've gotten some pretty good paying jobs, sales as well) but manage do to working in in bulk. I make it work..but I also play 8-14 hours a day doing it. That's not a game, thats a job. But it is in a state of a race to the bottom. Most of the player base, the established player base, have  a dedicated customer list. They are still doing quite well. As another poster commented on new skills/career....how quickly did they grind up arch when it came out?  I remember when Wagons came out. That market died in a mont it was flooded so fast.

 

Edit: In the end, those that say the economy doesn't matter and shouldn't matter are making false statements. We all play the economy game. How, why and in what way it matters=to us is different for different people. We are all so invested in playing the economy we all are willing to engage in it while still making less then we could if we just sold everything to token. I play it too, because I like to. If i didn't care about the economy, I wouldn't even have a deed. Hell I wouldn't even prem, I'd just sell everything to token and sell the silver for real money. No reason to own deed. No reason to skill up, if we are selling things that, at it's core material is less then token value, is less then "Wurm minimum wage". We do it because we fell engaging with each other is more imprtant then bleeding funds from ClubAB. even if you just barter with other players, you are still engaging in the economy.

 

The economy is important. it's the only reason we deed. it's the only reason we prem, and those two things there, are the only reasons CluB Ab can afford to stay in business.

 

Edited by Elisha

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2 hours ago, Elisha said:

And you ask how far can they drop it? currently several high production farmers are selling for 75c. One is even selling for 50c. Thats for 99ql veggies. 99 ql veggies go for 10i at token. That's 10,000i per/k, or 100c, or 1s. They could literary make more money selling it back to ClubAB then selling to to players for less then Wurm minimum wage.

 

Just wanted to touch on this...if I just harvest/sow I get 6 crops. That's 2 actions. I have to recoup one crop for seeding, so that's a net game of 5 crops. 5 crops for 2 actions, that's 2.5 crops an action.

 

At 50c/1000, that's 50c/400 actions or 12.5 iron/action.

Coming out ahead of minimum wage.

2 hours ago, Elisha said:

15 actions...

So a small barrel should, at minimum cost, be 1s50c

 

You multiplied it by 100. 15 actions is 1.5 copper.

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1 hour ago, Hailene said:

 

Just wanted to touch on this...if I just harvest/sow I get 6 crops. That's 2 actions. I have to recoup one crop for seeding, so that's a net game of 5 crops. 5 crops for 2 actions, that's 2.5 crops an action.

 

At 50c/1000, that's 50c/400 actions or 12.5 iron/action.

Coming out ahead of minimum wage.

 

You multiplied it by 100. 15 actions is 1.5 copper.

another points is you only can sell 5c per hour AND if there is money on coffers. os max is 1s 20c if you sell every hour, lets say 1s per day per toon, non prem alts can make this highier, so only need one toon prem toon making the crops and many free alts to get the money

 

 

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1 hour ago, Hailene said:

 

Just wanted to touch on this...if I just harvest/sow I get 6 crops. That's 2 actions. I have to recoup one crop for seeding, so that's a net game of 5 crops. 5 crops for 2 actions, that's 2.5 crops an action.

 

At 50c/1000, that's 50c/400 actions or 12.5 iron/action.

Coming out ahead of minimum wage.

 

You multiplied it by 100. 15 actions is 1.5 copper.

 

Your still committing to three actions per tile. output per harvest is irrelevant. Increased output is the benefit of skill gain. the player should not be nerfed for gaining skill by saying he's somehow committing to less action per tile. Your artificially trying to gimp your supplier for getting better at what he does. It's telling people they should get paid less for doing better.

If I'm skilling farming, why would I want to skill beyond a freemo 20-cap if by doing so people are demanding I'm getting paid less per action, less per tile? Im still committing to three actions per tile. My ability to increase volume per harvest should reward me with increased turnover in sales, not gimp me by capping my ability to get paid for 3 actions. 

 

if the market was correct and are truly basing prices on actions, then increasing skill gain should require me to drop prices because of some belief that I'm committing less actions, which i am not, but allow me to either increase my volume of sales or, in case of a shrinking market, allow me to increase prices based on quality of the product while reducing the amount of tiles needed and convert them to some other venture. Again, that goes back to land being the only finite resource we have, therefore the only thing with actual value.

 

Now since you are getting both higher volume and higher quality per tile you can reduce the amount tiles, and slightly increase the price. This increases the profit margin per tile. It does not keep prices at a fix rate as players increase their volume and quality, they have more room the barter on prices. What this does, however, is keep the "minimum wage" rather stable.

 

You all essentially set rule, that the base price of things start at the number of actions, then goes up from there dependent on quality, rarity, casts, ect., then run through a hoops trying to re define what qualifies as as an action. Then wonder why the economy is shrinking and new players quit. An action is an action, output (be it volume, quality, rarity) notwithstanding. Those things your trying to manipulate to artificially reduce what qualifies as an action are supposed to used to increase the price from the base price to increase profit based on luck of of RGGesus (rare roll) and skill gain. No one should have to expect to get paid less per action as they improve their skill. I hate the use of punish in these discussion, but that is literally what that is. You are redefining what counts as a action to lower base prices, so you can get better items at the same price as the base it used to be...and wonder what the problem is with the economy. if actions is the bottom rung standard of base cost, then an action is an action, no matter what the outcome. If you can redefine what counts as an action as more volume equals less actions (which it does not) then it's also fair to raise prices upon failure, since you are committed to more actions for the same product. A new-ish player should be able to charge 3 times as much for wagon because of the high volume of failures. he committed to more actions.

 

And yes, I am somewhat aware that my examples may not have exactly perfect math, as they are just hypothetical examples. I was trying to make a larger point about just how the economy can go down, all the way to the bottom,  and why it can go there (as it does in most player economy MMO's at this stage of it's life). I didn't feel like spending all day triple checking decimal points and was just running numbers off the top of my head.

 

The point being players can, will, and in many cases are, selling to other players for less then token. Token is the bottom, we are hitting the bottom and still going down.

Edited by Elisha

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1 hour ago, Elisha said:

Your still committing to three actions per tile. output per harvest is irrelevant. Increased output is the benefit of skill gain. the player should not be nerfed for gaining skill by saying he's somehow committing to less action per tile. Your artificially trying to gimp your supplier for getting better at what he does. It's telling people they should get paid less for doing better.

 

You're not making sense.  If I was harvesting 1000 crops per a harvest the price would be adjusted for that. You're not being nerfed.

 

1 hour ago, Elisha said:

If I'm skilling farming, why would I want to skill beyond a freemo 20-cap if by doing so people are demanding I'm getting paid less per action, less per tile? Im still committing to three actions per tile. My ability to increase volume per harvest should reward me with increased turnover in sales, not gimp me by capping my ability to get paid for 3 actions. 

 

You're competing with others. If everyone on the server was only getting 3 crops per a tile, guess what, prices for crops are going to sky rocket. You'd probably expect 2-3s/1k.

 

But you're competing with a person that can get at least 6 crop for 3 actions.

Anyway, I'm not going to waste my time trying to debate on what an action should or should not be with you. I just pointed out a couple of your errors in your previous post.

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9 hours ago, Elisha said:

"...it will either make people quit..."

Thank goodness we don't have  dwindling player base now, right? Right?

 

"...or prem up and grind bunch of alts untill we cover all we wanted...."

You mean there's people still paying Wurm who don't have multiple alts now?

 

Now, Im not saying I agree with the guys suggestion...just saying, your counter points are, well, an epic failure in logic.

 

Wow, funny how people calling for epic fails in logic commit such horible crimes against it ;)

About you trying to be sarcastic with dwindling playerbase: So you think it's ok to destroy remaining playerbase too since it's dwindling? Cuz you're basing everything on a very bold premise that destroying curent veteran core of players will bread new life in wurm and somehow magicly summon bunch of new players who just waited for that? Uhm, i don't think that's main issue with people and them not playing Wurm ?

Second thing about alts you twisted ane shifted out of any context just that you look smart on forums... My point is that is pointless to indroduce proposed limitations in order to promote trading because people will bypass it with alts (or more alts) instead of you know actually trading. It would just create unnecessary hastle. It's totaly irrelevant if everyone already have alt or don't.

 

And one more thing you're terribly wrong is that is not that veteran players are problem but veteran accounts ot players who no longer play (a lot of veteran players who still play doesn't even bother with market or try to get rich from the game, there are always exceptions ofc). But you know who buys those accounts? New players, that's right.

Now removing character trading is seperate debate with alot of good cons and pros, but in the end yeah it does hurt market a lot for new players and unfortunately would be very difficult to ban it...

My thoughts are that maybe removing multiboxing would more natural solution as time is only true and natural constraint. Imagine if you had to choose will you chip bricks or grind blacksmithing to 90 instead of doing both at the same time ;) But people would whine about that too probably, and would create new pool of difficulties most likely.

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